What you need to know about BVT (Build Verification Testing)

Build Verification test is a set of tests run on every new build to verify that build is testable before it is released to test team for further testing. These test cases are core functionality test cases that ensure application is stable and can be tested thoroughly. Typically BVT process is automated. If BVT fails that build is again get assigned to developer for fix.

BVT is also called smoke testing or build acceptance testing (BAT)
New Build is checked mainly for two things:

Build validation

Build acceptance

Some BVT basics:

It is a subset of tests that verify main functionalities.

The BVT’s are typically run on daily builds and if the BVT fails the build is rejected and a new build is released after the fixes are done.

The advantage of BVT is it saves the efforts of a test team to setup and test a build when major functionality is broken.

BVT primarily checks for the project integrity and checks whether all the modules are integrated properly or not. Module integration testing is very important when different teams develop project modules. I heard many cases of application failure due to improper module integration. Even in worst cases complete project gets scraped due to failure in module integration.

What is the main task in build release? Obviously file ‘check in’ i.e. to include all the new and modified project files associated with respective builds. BVT was primarily introduced to check initial build health i.e. to check whether – all the new and modified files are included in release, all file formats are correct, every file version and language, flags associated with each file.
These basic checks are worth before build release to test team for testing. You will save time and money by discovering the build flaws at the very beginning using BVT.

Which test cases should be included in BVT?

This is very tricky decision to take before automating the BVT task. Keep in mind that success of BVT depends on which test cases you include in BVT.

Here are some simple tips to include test cases in your BVT automation suite:

Include only critical test cases in BVT.

All test cases included in BVT should be stable.

All the test cases should have known expected result.

Make sure all included critical functionality test cases are sufficient for application test coverage.

Also do not includes modules in BVT, which are not yet stable. For some under-development features you can’t predict expected behavior as these modules are unstable and you might know some known failures before testing for these incomplete modules. There is no point using such modules or test cases in BVT.

You can make this critical functionality test cases inclusion task simple by communicating with all those involved in project development and testing life cycle. Such process should negotiate BVT test cases, which ultimately ensure BVT success. Set some BVT quality standards and these standards can be met only by analyzing major project features and scenarios.

These are some sample test cases, which can be marked as ‘critical’ and for every minor or major changes in application these basic critical test cases should be executed. This task can be easily accomplished by BVT.

BVT automation suits needs to be maintained and modified time-to-time. E.g. include test cases in BVT when there are new stable project modules available.

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What happens when BVT suite run:
Say Build verification automation test suite executed after any new build.1) The result of BVT execution is sent to all the email ID’s associated with that project.2) The BVT owner (person executing and maintaining the BVT suite) inspects the result of BVT.3) If BVT fails then BVT owner diagnose the cause of failure.4) If the failure cause is defect in build, all the relevant information with failure logs is sent to respective developers.5) Developer on his initial diagnostic replies to team about the failure cause. Whether this is really a bug? And if it’s a bug then what will be his bug-fixing scenario.6) On bug fix once again BVT test suite is executed and if build passes BVT, the build is passed to test team for further detail functionality, performance and other testes.

This process gets repeated for every new build.

Why BVT or build fails?
BVT breaks sometimes. This doesn’t mean that there is always bug in the build. There are some other reasons to build fail like test case coding error, automation suite error, infrastructure error, hardware failures etc.
You need to troubleshoot the cause for the BVT break and need to take proper action after diagnosis.

Tips for BVT success:1) Spend considerable time writing BVT test cases scripts.2) Log as much detailed info as possible to diagnose the BVT pass or fail result. This will help developer team to debug and quickly know the failure cause.3) Select stable test cases to include in BVT. For new features if new critical test case passes consistently on different configuration then promote this test case in your BVT suite. This will reduce the probability of frequent build failure due to new unstable modules and test cases.4) Automate BVT process as much as possible. Right from build release process to BVT result – automate everything.5) Have some penalties for breaking the build Some chocolates or team coffee party from developer who breaks the build will do.

Conclusion:
BVT is nothing but a set of regression test cases that are executed each time for new build. This is also called as smoke test. Build is not assigned to test team unless and until the BVT passes. BVT can be run by developer or tester and BVT result is communicated throughout the team and immediate action is taken to fix the bug if BVT fails. BVT process is typically automated by writing scripts for test cases. Only critical test cases are included in BVT. These test cases should ensure application test coverage. BVT is very effective for daily as well as long term builds. This saves significant time, cost, resources and after all no frustration of test team for incomplete build.

If you have some experience in BVT process then please share it with our readers in comments below.

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Developers migh be doing the unit and intregration testing and not necessarily the BVT. BVT is most of the times done by test engineer. Once the build team deploys the test build on the test environments its the job of test engineer to perform BVT (sniff, sanity smoke etc..)
If you are able to test the applicaiton and are executing the test cases, its natural that the BVT has been passed. Else you wouldn’t have been able to test the applciation… It dosent mattter if the testing is done manually or is automated using any tool. If the build has got a new feature how can you automate it?

Following is the process that you might follow:
Developer initiates a mail to build team (also marked to test team with the description of what to be tested in the new build) to make the build >> Build team makes the build and deploys it on test machines and replies all asking the test team to continue testing, else if build fails he replies so in the mail >> If the BVT fails tester replies to mail stating that the BVT failed along with the logs whatever are available, else continues testing.

Hi,
I found this article very interesting, thanks for the information. While testing web modules we frequently come across schema hardcoding done by developers, can it also be a part of BVT, even if it is not related to any specific module.

Talking about BVT, I am sure you would agree that this is one of the most confused and most misunderstood concepts in S/W Testing. Few weeks ago one of my blog readers had asked me a plain vanilla definition of BVT. But unlike you (giving away my version of definition of BVT), I opted for hearing the different versions of definitions circulating in the Testosphere! And the result was shocking! Well, here is the result of the Case Study in case anybody wants to take a look.

Hi Suhas ,
Now its too much clear to me wht exactly BVT the author want to tell us in this nice Post.Well you are absolutely right for the Procedure that we are following for testing. Anyways thanks sir for the useful information and really appreciated your reply.

Thats a good article by vijay but as pointed out by suhas, it depends from organisation to organisation. Its not necessary that BVT is done by developers. Once the build is ready it is released to the testing team who does the smoke testing and confirms for failure or success of the same. Thanks for suhas’s comment.

@meera
database testing is more related with white box testing stuff ..Actualli i mean to say u need to concentrate on followings
1>varify dsn is correct or not
2>varify weather we are referring correct table or not
3>varify in inline qurey/sp/trigger
4>varify data in the table is updated or latest or not..
this is all very very important prerequisite that tester shold know like developer..since most of invalid bug is because of this…
if anything more ping me back..rahulkumarbangalore@yahoo.co.in

@sonali
I have given clear difference b/n smoke and sanity here 1 more time
Thi sis most mcommon thing weather folks get confused..but i will give more clear example

SMOKE–it checks health of build..weather health i sstable or not ..which decide weather further testing would be carried out or not..we check weather build is crashing or not..it is more systematic than SANITY..

SANITY–it checks functionality of build at higher level..we carried out one teansection related to each module hare..it is less formal and less planned then SMOKE.

if smoke fails sanity stops.Sanity tell weather it is “reasonable” enough to carry out testing or not..

Iam not able to understand what is this APACHE AND TOMCAT SERVER is all about..are they different ?
Some say they are not and they are called as webapplication servers.By the way do application server and web server reside on the same machine or in different machines.How they are configured.
How a application server contacts webserver or vice versa..again are they configured on differnet machines .I am totally confused please help me understand this.Respond me to this e mail with your answers norman_g40@yahoo.com

hello friends/sir/mam
Its Pankaj Bhatt,completed graduation in Commerce.I know JAVA Language.Looking for Software Testing.Need help from u.
I have make career in this field,so what step i have to follow?

SMOKE TESTING:
1) Smoke testing originated in the hardware testing practice of turning on a new piece of hardware for the first time and considering it a success if it does not catch fire and smoke. In software industry, smoke testing is a shallow and wide approach whereby all areas of the application without getting into too deep, is tested.
2) A smoke test is scripted–either using a written set of tests or an automated test
3) A Smoke test is designed to touch every part of the application in a cursory way. It’s is shallow and wide.
4) Smoke testing will be conducted to ensure whether the most crucial functions of a program work, but not bothering with finer details. (Such as build verification).
5) Smoke testing is normal health check up to a build of an application before taking it to testing in depth.

SANITY TESTING:
1) A sanity test is a narrow regression test that focuses on one or a few areas of functionality. Sanity testing is usually narrow and deep.
2) A sanity test is usually unscripted.
3) A Sanity test is used to determine a small section of the application is still working after a minor change.
4) Sanity testing is a cursory testing; it is performed whenever a cursory testing is sufficient to prove the application is functioning according to specifications. This level of testing is a subset of regression testing.
5) sanity testing is to verify whether requirements are met or not, checking all features breadth-first.

hello sir or madam
today i went to interview.
in that interviewer asked abt qtp and winrunner ,which one is best.
on that time what i told is now every one is using qtp,
is it correct or not.i dont know.
and another question ,we ar ready to test linux ,which one is best again he asked.
what i told is in this testing we ar testing the functionality.
is it correct or not.
he asks how to test the linux.

I recently joined a MNC as a test engineer and i was put into an onsite-offshore model project. I am facing prb regd executing testcases as the application crashes/gives error msg at diff. pts while entering the data due to which i cannot set p/f status to any of the testcases.i do not know where the prb is? And my teamlead does not care abt this and says that i have to finish atleast some testcases before the end of the day as she has to report to onsite lead. I do not know what to do. where is the prb i do not understand. can any one help me.

I recently joined a MNC as a test engineer and i was put into an onsite-offshore model project. I am facing prb regd executing testcases as the application crashes/gives error msg at diff. pts while entering the data due to which i cannot set p/f status to any of the testcases.i do not know where the prb is? And my teamlead does not care abt this and says that i have to finish atleast some testcases before the end of the day as she has to report to onsite lead. I do not know what to do. where is the prb i do not understand. can any one help me.
didn’t get an answer for this yet. Hoping for an imm. reply folks

Currently i am working in Non-IT field and planned to switch my career to testing.I had learned the basics of testing,and now i am very eager to learn testing practically with real time projects.
If any one interested to teach testing personally with real time projects , i will be more grateful, or else show me the right place in chennai.
Thanks & regardsselvam.ba@rediffmail.com

Thanks for the article, as far for others who think Sanity and smoke testing are same , then this is for them

Sanity testing:
Once a new build is obtained with minor revisions, instead of doing a through regression, a sanity is performed so as to ascertain the build has indeed rectified the issues and no further issue has been introduced by the fixes. Its generally a subset of regression testing and a group of test cases are executed that are related with the changes made to the app.
Generally, when multiple cycles of testing are executed, sanity testing may be done during the later cycles after through regression cycles.

Smoke Testing:
When a build is received, a smoke test is run to ascertain if the build is stable and it can be considered for further testing.
Smoke testing can be done for testing the stability of any interim build.
Smoke testing can be executed for platform qualification tests.

@ Vijay
Thanks to Sarath S Pillai.I will just add my note here mite b helpful to others.
sanity and smoke there is no much difference and moverover its company specif wt have they have given.
BUT if u go by books dffination
SANITY–is build acceptence test used to certify the build where build is stable or not and we decide here is it worth time spending for further testing or not..
Most important thing is taht we have seperate test cases for SANITY.some company have sanity check list.its one and same thing

SMOKE–as i told there is no much difference between sanity and smoke.However we focus testing on more critical and important test path.basically we check depth wise while in sanity we check bredth wise.

This is for the first time i had read about BVT and blive me i dint find any problem in understanding the concept,this matter is so transparent this even i can visualize the BVT process…and which help me lot to keep the concept of BVT in my mind for a long time…
Thanx & Regards…

Hi Shweta…
Actully when we find any bug in any module thru BVT it assigned to the respective developer for fix and after fixing it,we again test the same application and its impact on others thru BVT,and which is the same thing we do in Regression Testing…

Hi Addy…
Both BVT & smoke testing are functional testing techniques,
Sanity testing is vry similar to smoke testing,in this we test the basic functionality of the component.
Re-testing is to re test the component after fixing the bug.
Regression testing is test the impact of the fixed bug on the whole project.
& UIT ithink it similar to UAT.

[…] get time for writing test cases. You first identify some crucial tasks from your project. Write BVT cases for these tasks. So when you get new build you can perform smoke testing on new build with […]

Hey, Do you really practice the script execution for the Smoke testing. And also in many cases of keyword driven testing, the flows are not very much organised to suit the smoke tetsing suite, as oer my knowledge. SO how is that we proceed with the same in case it has to be practised.

hi vijay ,i am sandya.now i am studying mphil (C.A).i select software testing for my research topic.my guide told me to take that topic is ” how to enhance performance on regression testing?”.but i do not know how 2 do that?pls send some related heading to my mail id.my mail id is sandyaselvam@gmail.com

Hi Vijay ..
The details about BAT is really very helpful and Could I know which automation testing tool would be used to test the Build Installation.
Please do get me some idea for this as I am assigned to google this in my concern.

Hi,
I am working as a release team member , daily i installed my latest build and execute some set of test cases, it is very painful job to do daily. can you please suggest me is dar any tool for this type of snoke testing??

Well,really a good article to read and I would appreciate such initiatives.I am manual test engineer and have overall 2.6 years of experience guys can you share your respective email Id,s to me or let me know if there are any opening on pratapvarun93@gmail.com,I,ll be highly thankful to you all.

Hi,
There is as such no testing process in my organisation but what i do is …creating test scenarios and test cases based on that…try to cover all client requirement ..only tester for 5-6 developers team..have test their individual module as well as integrated system ..
but after doing this for long time i found this very time consuming and i have to put more extra efforts to get that quality which i want in my products.

can any one suggest me what is the good option in that case to achieve a quality build with minimum amount of efforts ..

i am not saying that i don’t want to work hard to achieve my goals all I want is smart way to get it ..
i know automation is an option and i am looking for that trying selenium and little bit qtp..

but automation is applicable after system is testable .
Thanks
waiting for rep